Unschool to College Is Un-Homeschooling Too — Let’s Call It Real Education

There is a big email list called “homeschool2 college.” It is exhausting just to read! I can’t imagine and surely couldn’t bear such intense pressures on the family, of trying to do everything schools do fulltime for — to? — many children at once, as large homeschooling families taking this approach must do.

I suppose I always vaguely knew but never felt the real impact, of what all school-driven folk homeschooling or otherwise, go through to get their kids into college, even when all the schooling and drive is, well, homework. So here I am, hit upside the head again with the glaringly clear truth that anybody schooling at home has more in common with charter school parents than our unschooling does, by FAR. We’re the ones who should be griping about the confusion!

Wonder if that’s why they strain at any gnat of difference they can conjure, rightly afraid they are in fact indistinguishable from those schooling at home exactly as they are and for the same reasons, except with some public assistance to pay the bills?

All the while, you can’t help laughing to see them swallowing the camel of our differences within home education! (Matthew 23:24 for the non-bible readers among us)

Anyway, back to getting our kids in college from home:

Schools are Accountable to US, Not Us to Them

Once upon a time, unschooling JJ dressed in her own academic robes and mortarboard, was quoted at “Learning for Life: Educational Words of Wisdom” and in good company too! — Gatto, Emerson, Einstein:

“Nine out of 10 parents were publicly schooled. If they are unfit as adults to direct the education of their own children, then public schooling should hang its collective head and change its ways — not cement its collective failures into the constitution.”
~J.J. Ross, Ed.D.

Think I’ll add this site to Snook’s links . . .after all, as it says in the masthead:

“By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; and by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.” ~Proverbs 24:3-4

Asleep at the Switch in School Policy?

Can’t argue with this part:

So if candidates want the parent vote, here’s a wake-up call. Stand up for an educational policy that allows students’ real needs — rather than outdated time constraints — to dictate how and when our children learn best.

The “wake up call” on adolescent sleep biology is good too, especially if it’s the turning of a nationwide trend toward healthier social policy for all kids. But extending school to a fulltime job for little kids though, um, not so much . . .boy do we have some better ideas! 🙂

Hillary Going Mano Y Mano??

Swear to God, I was vacuuming up tree needles after packing up holiday fiddly bits all day, turned off the roar, when what to my wondering ears should appear, but the election news guy on CNN’s “Ballot Bowl ’08” — what a stupid, sporty name for the universal franchise people kill and die to secure — chirping that it was Obama and Hillary “mano y mano” in Nevada . . . last weekend’s big news was her soft, girly tears sobbed on the stump and it worked so well she told NH with a smile she’d finally “found herself” — but this weekend she’s suddenly recast as manly in hand-to-hand combat, and nobody blinks, it isn’t even news?? Is that her story, or CNN’s, or just a Freudian flub?

And since when was Obama pugilistic either, isn’t he the peaceful rainbow candidate, why is he into hand-to-hand combat? They are both lawyers, so shouldn’t their fighting be mouth to mouth rather than hand to hand? (Did she come out or something while I was busy being domestic and literally wearing an apron, or has the MSM gone completely off the Deep End, or maybe the newsguy was riffing and he meant to call her a man instead –would that be better? — hmmm, well, it wouldn’t have insulted Obama at least, since he actually IS a man . . .)

p.s. Daryl is accepting comments about what feminists teach their daughters about Hillary as a woman and it mattering, or a woman but it doesn’t, or — whatever.

another afterthought – does either Hillary Clinton or Barak Obama have Latin heritage or speak more than politic Spanish?

Dandy Review for Favorite Daughter’s Opening Night

The JJ in this story btw, is no relation, thanks for asking! I guess since it’s the role for which John Lithgow won a Tony, I won’t protest any confusion (other than gender confusion) too much . . .and maybe this review’s description of “JJ’s acid arrogance” . . . 😉

“The ensemble of singers and dancers was packed with fine singers who also could dance. . .”

Jan 11, 2008
‘Sweet Smell’ has sharp edge, snappy cast
By Kati Schardl
DEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER

If “Sweeney Todd” is the dark and gleaming star in Stephen Sondheim’s theatrical diadem, then “Sweet Smell of Success” is Marvin Hamlisch’s “Sweeney.”

That’s right — Marvin Hamlisch, whose first hit was Lesley Gore’s 1965 rendition of his ditty “Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows” and who’s best known for his peppy reworking of Scott Joplin rags for the soundtrack for “The Sting.”

The man who made “The Entertainer” a pop-music staple got downright dark with the tunes in the score of “Sweet Smell.” Craig Carnelia provided lyrics of an equally dusky hue, and the inimitable John Guare (“Six Degrees of Separation”) supplied hard-edged, snappy dialogue.

“Sweet Smell of Success” is a musical adaptation of the superb Clifford Odets-Ernest Lehman movie (based on Lehman’s novella) of 1957, a thrilling dive into the shark tank of Noo Yawk celebrity culture as chronicled by celebrated columnist Walter Winchell in the ’40s and ’50s.

Theatre A La Carte’s Concert Series production of “Sweet Smell” put the music in the spotlight at Wednesday’s preview performance. There was a jim-dandy chamber orchestra/swing-band onstage, and the performers packed nifty dance numbers (choreographed by Michele Ackermann) into the remaining space with verve and economy. . .

Read full review at the newspaper link. We have tickets for tonight, whee!

I am JAZZED.

Schilling for Video Games No “Natural Progression”

Guess what The Never-Shy Bloody Sock, Curt Shilling, will be doing after his last year with the BoSox?

Why, schilling for video games of course!  😉

Homeschool Evangelicals Heed God’s Wartime Call

We have a conservative Christian military family on our local homeschool discussion list, and the dad often posts from Iraq. It’s the most direct connection I have to homeschoolers at war, even if I don’t share any of his personal beliefs and have never met him. So I was thinking of that family especially — what we share and what we don’t — when I saw this homeschool family’s story from Jacksonville (practically local!)

In my current frame of mind, I see in it some layered insight into matters of ultimate concern, as Scott Somerville used to dub our NHEN discussions — fraught family, church and school choices, the difference between “mom” and “teacher” and perhaps, how the group labels we choose seeking the individual support we need, wind up defining — pigeonholing? — us even among good, godly people, and costing some much more than others. And overlaying it all, of course, real (not metaphorical) war and peace . . .

“HEEDING GOD”S WARTIME CALL”
. . .McDaniel told the Witness he is proud of the sacrifice his wife has
made to support him and to homeschool the children. McDaniel said the
schooling situation is fluid and the family reevaluates often based on
the children’s needs and what is available in the private and public
sector wherever they are stationed.

They move about every 18 months, he said, so finding schools — and a church — can take time. . .”

I would feel remiss if I didn’t add two key words for all military families homeschooling, evangelical or not — Valerie Moon. Her own family’s homeschooling stories were recently recounted via a wordpress blog interview in four parts, and her online magnum opus, “The Military Homeschooler” site, is nothing short of excellent.

“Interview with Valerie Moon, Part I”

“Interview with Valerie Moon, Part II”

“Interview with Valerie Moon, Part III”

“Interview with Valerie Moon, Part IV”

Favorite Daughter on Her New Semester

The story that goes with this is priceless, too . .
😉

Chilling Quote of the Day

“What kind of life is this, when you can’t even make your home safe for your children?”

Lying, Cheating, Labeling, False Beliefs, You Name It. . .

‘Tis the season. The SEC again defines itself as dominant but not so my SEC team. . .

Georgia [also SEC] certainly would have put up a better fight than Ohio State, which was embarrassed by an SEC opponent in the BCS title game for the second season in a row. The Bulldogs, who finished No. 2 in the final AP Top 25 poll, never got their chance against LSU. [but]. . .the Bulldogs were good enough to beat LSU. . .
University of Georgia president Michael Adams . . . suggested the current BCS system has become a “beauty contest largely stage-managed” by TV networks.

“This year’s experience with the BCS forces me to the conclusion that the current system has lost public confidence and simply does not work,” Adams said in a statement released by the school on Tuesday. “It is undercutting the sportsmanship and integrity of the game.”

Like schools competing to run up the (test) score and garner enough votes to keep the cash flowing their way, rather than preserving the principled integrity of the Education Game?

“Perhaps Gov. Crist, who correctly ousted some of ex-Gov. Bush’s worst education appointees, will sense through his finely tuned political antennae that the public wants a better test, with more emphasis on diagnostics, and that the public wants some of the improvement – a changed schedule, an end to misleading school grades – much faster than five years from now. . .

But today is my stupidity whine about school sports, not school itself, indistinguishable as they are.

I had to stop watching the defending national champion Gators play their bowl game last week before the top of my head blew off, from screaming at the idiot, apparently corrupted referee team for calling “holding” only on the team not committing it, for calling back every touchdown we scored and making us score it again before it would count — literally, no lie, not even exaggerating for effect this time.

And so I literally went and took a COLD SHOWER to cool off, woman though I am and winter though it be.

And they were *ACC* referees let us note! — a conference that openly despises the Gators specifically and envies the dominant SEC generally, on top of which ACC referees seem to use their incompetence as a weapon (not that I can afford to get so emotionally involved, maybe if my arteries were cleaner and blood pressure not already on the edge . . .my temples are starting to pound again. . .)

SEC commissioner Michael Slive, the outgoing coordinator of the BCS, said he is open to discussing changes to college football’s postseason format. ACC commissioner John Swofford, who replaces Slive in overseeing the BCS, said his league was in favor of a “plus-one format,” . . . The Pac-10 and Big Ten traditionally have been adamantly opposed to such a system.

“This is a season of discussion,” Slive said Tuesday morning, minutes before he presented Miles with the BCS championship trophy. “It’s time to air it all out.”

We Can’t Agree What Religious Words Mean, Either

Dana at Principled Discovery has been hosting a discussion about defining home education, and how we humans pollute our own most important meanings. Crimson Wife made the point that as a Catholic Christian, she knows what it feels like to be defined out of her own group by “Christians” who aren’t Catholic. And y’all know my own concern is for clarity in the difference between “education” and “schooling.”

Time to review what we’ve learned together, class! And see if we can start to apply it for good instead of evil.

From last year’s “Awe and the Environment”:
Is there something else you call yourselves besides dominionists?
I’d call myself a steward although christian seems to work as well. ‘Dominionist’ holds darker political tones, linked to christian reconstructionism or bringing christian control to the US.

Hi Dawn – the term Christian itself (like homeschooler?) seems to have been redefined by the wacko contingent, though. And the Imus thing teaches the power of language for evil as well as good — the language we use to frame our humanity seems to be under assault in all directions, so that even when we manage to THINK a clear thought, its sworn enemies are lying in wait to choke it off in the crib or lose it in the wilderness, as soon as we try to EXPRESS it.

Not just Christians. And not just homeschoolers. It all ties together into even darker and more menacing problems of meaning IN LAW, not just in our private speech. As prominent educator Deborah Meier pointed out last fall, the root problem may be that we can’t legally define “educated person” without legal dominionism stemming from religious dominionism (which I would define as fascism but maybe that’s just wacko JJ off on a tangent again) :

“…Deborah Meier , in one sentence, tells us the basic problem.
The very definition of what constitutes an “educated person” is now dictated by federal legislation. (p.67)”

– From Many Children Left Behind : How the No Child Left Behind Act is Damaging Our Children and Our Schools
Book review By Michael F. Shaughnessy, Senior Columnist
Published 10/16/2006

Then in November we saw a St. Pete Times editorial about redefining political words for religious unreasoning, manipulated by the same people who (as I wrote at the time)

The Meaning of Home Education AGAIN?? Really?

Well, at least this time around, there’s way more diverse story to read than just those same old populist-pandering, politically myopic, last-century prophesies of home education’s doom through lack of clarity and separation, recycled endlessly on all the lists and forums . . .

Several folks found and read these “power of story” stories last week about the meaning of home education — don’t let them have all the fun!

“Large Dogs Welcome!”

“Another Cloud on Home Education’s Clarity Campaign Horizon?”

“Power of Story Rules (truth both literal and literary)”